


TAKE ME BACK TO THE NIGHT WE MET

by AgnesClementine



Series: FIGHTERS OF THE GOOD FIGHT [12]
Category: Supernatural, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, M/M, news flash they are still emotionally dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23705716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgnesClementine/pseuds/AgnesClementine
Summary: He and Diego went on the road that same night, and everything’s been…fine. Everything is more or less just like it was before Dean’s colossal fuck-up- except it isn’t. Diego is…Diego. But Dean feels that he’s still pissed off at him; especially considering he still hasn’t let Dean apologize.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Dean Winchester
Series: FIGHTERS OF THE GOOD FIGHT [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1301294
Comments: 150
Kudos: 239





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hellooo, long time no see I'M SORRY. Quarantine school is a bitch. But anyway- Dean and Diego are back on their bullshit. For now.
> 
> This work has been inspired by theliteraltrash and works as their drabble prompt too bc I have no self-control and spawned this instead of a drabble. Ooops??
> 
> Let me know what you think and enjoy! :)

They are 20 minutes away from the Montana border when Dean’s phone starts ringing. He presses it to his ear wordlessly, watching out of the corner of his eyes as Diego stirs in the passenger seat but doesn’t actually wake up.

“Dean?” His father’s voice comes through over the roar of the engine.

“Hey, Dad.”

“How far are you from Montana?”

Dean blinks, says, “Uh, just about to pass the border, actually.”

“Great. Caleb has a case for you, ghoul by the looks of it.”

Next to him, Diego’s elbow slips from the door and his head, propped up on his hand, thwacks against the window. He wakes up with a jerk, a hand immediately reaching to rub his forehead, and says, “Ow, shit.”

On the line, Dad takes a beat and then asks, “Diego’s with you?”

Dean rests his elbows on the wheel to scratch the back of his neck. He says, “Yeah.”

He and Diego went on the road that same night, and everything’s been…fine. Everything is more or less just like it was before Dean’s colossal fuck-up- except it isn’t. Diego is…Diego. But Dean feels that he’s still pissed off at him; especially considering he still hasn’t let Dean apologize. But Dean doesn’t want to press his luck with Diego’s at least seemingly good graces- so he keeps his mouth shut. And his hands to himself, for the most past. He doesn’t know how welcome his touch is right now.

Diego frowns at him curiously and Dean mouths “ _Dad_ ” at him.

He immediately pauses and drops his hand in his lap.

In Dean’s ear, his dad says, “Huh. Alright. Glad you sorted out your mess. The hunt seems pretty clean-cut, find a motel and I’ll send you everything Caleb managed to dig out about this bastard.”

“Alright, talk to you soon,” Dean responds and pockets his phone after a signal beep.

Diego rubs his eyes and rolls his neck with a series of disturbing cracks. His fingers fly to his nape and he digs them in, groans. Dean wishes those were his fingers instead.

“What’s the plan?” Diego asks him, still massaging his neck. He keeps saying he’ll start sleeping in the backseat- and then keeps falling asleep curled up in the passenger seat.

Dean tears his eyes from fading, discolored bruise high on Diego’s cheekbone, tells him, “Ghoul in Montana, Dad’s gonna text us the details.”

Diego hums in response, then pulls a knife from somewhere- Dean sometimes doesn’t even notice he has one in hand until the reflection hits his eyes- and starts idly twirling it between his fingers. He draws the pad of his thumb over the sharp edge and Dean focuses on the road before he gives in to the temptation of taking his hand before he cuts himself.

  * ●●●●



They find a motel by the road a bit after 7 pm. Dad sends the message with Caleb’s information just a quarter till 9 but they don’t go back to the road immediately. Instead, they agree to stay the night because Dean is dead tired of driving and thinking about letting Diego drive gives him anxiety. Not that Diego is a bad driver. He’s just. Well. He’s himself in every sense of the word. And some things are just sacred.

So here they are.

Diego is asleep, properly, and Dean is just listening to his breathing. There’s probably not a lot of things that could be creepier than that, he admits, but he’s trying to see or notice, a change. _The change_. The not breathing thing. Because Diego said it happens on its own sometimes, and that it happened with Dean present more than once too.

He briefly wonders how Diego even found out about that and then shuts down that train of thought because what he knows about Diego’s childhood is messed up as it is without Dean’s brain tacking on its own opinions about The Umbrella Academy.

Shit.

Dean sighs quietly, pushes his face into the pillow in lieu of dragging a hand over his face, then goes back to watching. The moonlight colors the room in silvery-blue light, but just barely, and casts abstract shadows over everything. It’s fine, Dean could still probably be able to pinpoint each of Diego’s features in the dark. The scar on his eyebrow and the one on the side of his face currently smushed into the pillow. He could find the hollow of his throat and the soft dip above his collarbones as easy as anything.

He doesn’t, fingers gripping the sheets to disperse the urge.

  * ●●●●



In the morning, they eat gas-station breakfast (shitty coffee and pre-packed bagels) and then Diego goes through the details Dad sent yesterday as they gun it toward their destination, a good hour and a half away.

“Uh, okay. We’ve got four dead; a taxi driver Jeff Koffman, a stay-at-home mom Kate Emerson and her teenage son Cody, and- surprise- a gravedigger Donald Murray,” Diego reads out loud as Dean drives. He frowns down at Dean’s phone where the names are listed and looks over at Dean. “I get the gravedigger, but the other three don’t really make sense.”

Dean agrees. Ghouls usually stick to graveyards and cemeteries. “Yeah, what, this one bagged the Murray guy and took a cab to kill a mom and the kid? What about the dad?”

Diego is quiet for a bit, skimming over the text before saying, “Bingo. Died last June.”

“Alright,” Dean says because now they have one of the faces the ghoul is wearing- unless it already changed form. Though, they can put the victims on the list as well. God, Dean fucking hates the things that change shape.

Diego pokes around his phone for a while longer and Dean gets lulled into the focus of keeping his eyes on the road, absently tapping the rhythm of Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir on the wheel. Then Diego swears.

“What?” Dean asks, glancing at him.

Diego’s frowning something fierce at the screen, says, “Emersons lived a street away from the cemetery.” He looks at Dean, shows him the map on his phone, “Why the fuck would the ghoul take a fucking taxi for a five-minute walk?”

“Aw, fuck,” Dean says because he suddenly has a feeling this is not going to be as clean-cut as Dad thought.

  * ●●●●



They roll into the town and rent a motel room in mid-afternoon. The walls are a hideous moldy green and the clock mounted on the wall opposite the beds wears Donald the Duck’s face.

Dean and Diego exchange looks and Dean says, “I hope to fuck we finish this fast.”

Diego doesn’t verbalize his answer but the screwed-up, grimace-y expression on his face indicates that he hopes so too.

They set their bags on the bed gingerly, and change into suits before talking over the game plan.

He drops Diego off at the salvage yard where the taxi was disposed after the forensics were done with it and then drives to the cemetery.

The crime site is helpfully still marked with yellow tape. It’s a dug grave, nestled between two weather-worn headstones. The soil is tinged red with blood that got soaked up into it, smeared and concentrated to one side like the poor bastard got cornered before the ghoul started chomping down on him. Besides that, it’s completely untouched; no footsteps or marks of any kind. The cops and forensics haven’t even set a step down there, probably just hauled what was left of the body into a body bag, snapped a few photos for evidence and booked it out of here.

Dean notes a fresh set of footprints in the grass on the other side of the grave. Looks like someone might be interested in the case after all.

He wanders around the cemetery for a few more minutes; widening his sweep area. He doesn’t find anything besides a few holes going into the ground near an angel statue and a few ancient headstones a little ways off. Probably moles or some other kind of rodent that burrows underground.

  * ●●●●



“There are bite marks on the steering wheel,” Diego tells him when Dean picks him up from the salvage yard. “The driver, uh, Koffman, actually ripped it off to fend off the ghoul- unsuccessfully but. You know.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” Dean says without pep.

“Yeah,” Diego agrees, says, “though, the marks are all fucked up. I doubt they’ll manage to get a match.”

“Figures. They don’t seem all that competent either. I don’t think they even touched the graveyard scene beside grabbing the body and rolling it off to the morgue.”

Diego hums, arching his eyebrows. He’s not thinking any nice thoughts about law force here.

“Well, Koffman was divorced. Ex-wife’s in Philly with their two kids. And Murray has no wife and no kids. His main company was a bottle of Jack,” Diego says.

Dean gives him an inquisitive look.

Diego shrugs. “The yard owner is one chatty guy,” he explains with a sigh that says he damn near knocked himself unconscious to stop the noise.

Dean chuckles. For a moment, he forgets that Diego and him and still on slightly shaky grounds.

He sobers up and clears his throat.

“Alright, wanna go check the Emerson house or are we going straight to the station?”

  * ●●●●



Diego’s opinion of the local law force, once they enter the station, sinks even lower. They flash their badges at the officer with bloodshot eyes and as they are led to an unoccupied meetings room with case folders in tow, nobody bats an eye at them. No wonder there’s so many cold cases and information leaks everywhere. People keep getting dumber and easier to trick.

Once they are alone, they spread out the photos over the table and skim, unsurprisingly sparse, files.

“Ugh,” Dean says at the gore glaring at them from majority of the photos.

Diego comes closer to inspect the photos and when his shoulder brushes with Dean’s, Dean- with all the subtlety of a fucking tank plowing down a street- takes a step to the side, putting space between them.

Diego is…frustrated. Somewhat uneasy. Dean said he wants him with him; he took Diego back to the road and he didn’t yell again or turned up his nose at Diego’s existence. And he keeps holding him at arms’ length. Not even holding- because that would require _touching_ , which Dean has been all but avoiding since their...make up thing. Or whatever.

He thinks Dean might still be mad. And he wants to apologize- for something- but then Dean would insist on apologizing too and- _Diego’s not gonna cry over a fucking apology._ So he just has to hold off for a bit longer. Just until his feelings settle down finally.

He frowns as his eyes connect a pattern. Or the lack of one. His eyes run over the photos, ping-ponging from one to the other and to the another.

“Dean, I don’t think there’s only one,” he says slowly, eyes not moving from the photos.

“What?”

He plucks four different photos from the table and fans them out in his hand like cards.

“Look,” he says, waits until Dean scans over all four photos.

“The marks, they don’t match,” he says when Dean stays silent.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees. After a beat, he adds, “But what if it just changed forms between the kills. Besides, multiple maulings rarely have marks that match.”

“Yeah, but look at this,” Diego singles out two photos, the Emersons lying still and pale on the morgue table. “Look at their faces.”

“Handprints?” Dean squints at purple-red hand imprints on the victims’ faces; the deep hematomas on their eye sockets. Not looked at properly, they could be mistaken for the eye bags and the general dead look.

“Yeah, I think it tried to eat their eyes,” Diego says.

“Okay, that didn’t happen with the others,” Dean concedes, picking up the other two photos. Ghouls aren’t that picky but they are pretty consistent when it comes to what they’re eating. If it tried to eat the eyes on these two, it should’ve tried with the others too. If Diego had to guess, he’d say the only reason why it didn’t go through with it is because it was startled and had to cut its mealtime short.

Dean sighs.

“And here I hoped it would be an easy one.”

Diego sighs too.

  * ●●●●



Diego’s staring at the ceiling, listening to the rustling of paper bags as Dean starts on his dinner, when the thought occurs to him.

He frowns thoughtfully at the weird-shaped stain above his head.

“Hey, Dean?” He asks, mulling the idea over in his head.

Dean’s muffled hum is his response.

Diego sits up to look over at him, sitting at the table and devouring his burger. “What exactly do we know about ghouls?”

Dean chews for a moment, then washes it down with a gulp of beer. “Uh,” he starts, “they eat human flesh, usually dead people, and then take the shape of whoever they eat. Um, can be killed by decapitation but a real good kick in the head’s gonna do just fine. They live near- oh, son of a bitch,” he cuts himself off abruptly with realization dawning on his face.

“What?” Diego asks. He comes over to get started on his own burger, takes a sip of mineral water while Dean’s collecting his thoughts.

“At the cemetery- there were these holes in the ground near the crime scene. And ghouls live at freaking graveyards-“

“You mean-“ _don’t say it, don’t say it-_

“-what if those were tunnel openings?”

“Aw, fuck,” Diego says, setting his water bottle down sharply. “That’s just great.”

Granted, Dean doesn’t look thrilled about it either.

They eat in quiet for a few moments, just bubbles from Diego’s water quietly hissing, then Dean asks, “What were you gonna ask?”

“Hm?”

“About the ghouls?”

“Oh, right,” Diego says. Fuck, it’s gonna be so much worse if he’s right.

“What if they hunt in a pack?”

Dean pauses mid-chew, jaw open but mouth closed, miraculously. At last, he swallows.

“That,” he tells Diego, “would be really fucking bad.”

“But theoretically…?”

“Possible?”

“Terrific.”

  * ●●●●



John doesn’t pick up when Dean calls him, later that night, so he leaves a message explaining the not-great turn that the case has taken. Then, he walks over to the Impala and grabs his shovel and machete.

“Ready?” He asks Diego, who’s already got his machete tucked into his belt for the moment and the shovel slung over his shoulders horizontally, wrists hooked over the handle loosely in manner that makes his wrist bones seem more delicate than usual.

He grins self-assuredly at Dean and says, “Fuck no, man. Let’s go.”

And that? Yeah, that’s why Dean loves him.

They walk to the crime scene in slightly uncomfortable silence- it’s the best that gets between them these days, even though Dean’s set on fixing it soon, after the hunt- and their flashlights send twin spots of light over blood-stained soil of the open grave. Dean figures that whoever was gonna get buried there either got a shiny new spot or is waiting for the go-ahead from the cops.

Diego sits at the edge of the grave and peers down at it. “You think it covered the entrance after eating the gravedigger?”

“Yeah. Probably. It’s our best shot for now,” Dean tells him with a nod.

Diego tilts his head, eyebrows arching in acceptance. He jumps down to start digging- and falls right through.

  * ●●●●



“Diego!”

Motherfucker.

Diego crashes to the ground- underground- with a solid, achy thud and a pile of dirt raining down on him. His whole body hurts- mostly from the shock, to be honest- and he wheezes out a breath and a cough as the tiny, floating pieces of dirt enter his mouth on the inhale.

“Fuck! Diego!” A beam of light lands on him and he squints up, clambering up to his knees and blinking the dust from his eyes.

“I’m fine!” He calls back, and swipes a forearm over his face- in futile effort, considering he’s completely covered in dry, crumbling soil.

“Shit,” he hears Dean mutter from upstairs. A second later, his machete lands on the ground in front of Diego’s feet.

Fuck, he’s lucky he hasn’t impaled himself on his. The fucking irony that would be.

Dean lands on his feet with a stumble, tripping over uneven ground, then bends to pick up his machete.

He flashes his flashlight over Diego, a quick check-up. “You sure you’re good?”

“Yeah,” Diego responds. His back twinges as he goes to collect his own flashlight, lying a few paces away, and the shovel along with it. That’s gonna leave a bruise, he’s pretty sure he landed on a rock too…

Dean shudders out a sigh; Diego thinks- _hopes_ \- he’ll say something or lay a damn hand on his shoulder. Instead, he sends out a beam of light around them, casting their surroundings in temporary light.

Everything around them is dirt packed into walls, pounded in thick and sloppy; it reminds Diego of mining tunnels. Except there’s no support beams and this whole place could cave in on them any moment now. Just drop down on their heads and crush them. It makes something knot tightly between his shoulder blades, makes him feel almost claustrophobic.

Dean says, “Alright, fuck. Let’s get this over with.”

_Yeah, let’s._

  * ●●●●



They wander through the tunnels entirely too long. Diego itches all over from the dirt clinging to his skin and there’s strange thickness to the air. And the smell, fucking Christ.

He’s taking in tiny, measured breaths, trying to breathe in as little as possible because when the smell- stench, really- first hit them, they both gagged something fierce.

Dean has pulled the collar of his shirt tightly over his nose, expression pinched in disgust.

Their flashlights are sending beams of light into the dark, bumpy walls casting out strange shadows and keeping them alert. In front of them, the corridor opens up into a larger space. Diego spies a support beam- thank fuck- in one corner.

And then something crashes into him from the side. Dean’s flashlight cuts a harsh stroke over the room as he gets attacked as well.

Diego bounces off a corner, hears scuffle from wherever Dean is and a click of a switchblade. Instinctively, his hands find wrists, thin, and he hooks his ankle behind his attackers. Their frame is slighter than his, and the voice that punches out into the air in a shout of protest is high; a complete different pitch. A girl, then, or a woman. A female, in any case.

They both stumble, but it’s not enough, she knows how to maintain her balance, so Diego hitches his ankle mid-calf and pitches his weight forward. And down they go.

They hit the ground and Diego scrambles until he’s sitting on her stomach, pinning her down. He keeps hold on both her hands; someone carrying a switchblade in an underground tunnel system filled with ghouls is not armed with just one switchblade. The armed hand he brings to her throat, blade against the skin of her neck. She gasps quietly, realizing she’s not winning this fight.

A few seconds later, the scuffle on the other side comes to an end too- with a click of a gun’s safety coming off.

Because he knows what safety on Dean’s handgun sounds like- and because the girl beneath him relaxes a bit- he knows Dean’s not the one who came on top in that one.

A pool of light lands on them.

He aims his flashlight back.

A woman, 40-ish probably, has Dean on his knees, one arm wrenched back and a shotgun against his back. He shrugs at Diego as if saying “Eh, what can you do?” even as his face pulls into a wince, his bottom lip split just a bit near the right corner.

“Jo?” The woman calls, expression and voice measured, worry flickering just so in her eyes.

“I’m fine,” comes the response, almost petulantly. She doesn’t sound any older than Diego himself, probably even a bit younger, so Diego guesses she’s a daughter, most likely.

“Dean?” He asks.

“I’m fantastic,” Dean tells him.

“You boys have names?” The woman asks.

They exchange looks, then Diego says, “Hargreeves.”

Dean says, “Winchester.”

“Winchester? You’re John’s boy?”

Dean blinks in surprise. “Uh, yeah?” He responds unsurely.

“That your friend?” She nods at Diego.

“Yeah,” Dean tells her.

“Mind telling him to move the blade form my daughter’s throat?”

“Uh-“

Diego extracts the blade from cramping fingers and stands up in one smooth motion. He holds out a hand the blonde girl glaring up at him somewhat begrudgingly. She accepts his hand, though, and he pulls her up to her feet.

He proffers her the switchblade and her cloudy expression immediately lights up. Even if just a little.

The woman lets go of Dean’s arm and the safety goes back on.

“Ellen Harvelle,” she introduces herself, “and that’s my daughter Jo.”


	2. 2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyyy! I finally reached the actual prompt part of theliteraltrash's prompt! (Fun fact: I think this is the first time ever I wrote female POV. Huh, right?)
> 
> Anyway, yeah, ta-dah! Let me know what you think and enjoy! :)

The air is stale, reeking of soil, dust, and rot and it’s achingly familiar in a way that fills Ellen with both nostalgia and disdain. The ground is firm beneath her boots, but it feels like she’s going down a landslide with nothing to hold onto.

She hasn’t done this for over a decade but she can almost feel Bill walking shoulder-to-shoulder with her.

Up front, Jo is walking through the dark with John’s boy and his friend flanking her from both sides. They are a sight, fresh-faced and ready to raise hell.

The new kid, Diego, is interesting. Both from a mother’s and a hunter’s standpoint. He doesn’t hold himself like a hunter; like he’s waiting for something to jump out of the shadows to tear him apart, but he is alert and ready to fight at the drop of a hat. And the scar on his face that caught the light when Ellen pointed her flashlight at him is old and doesn’t indicate a peaceful childhood. Hell, he’s probably barely older than Jo and all her baby girl has is a few nicks from her dad’s knives.

Dean, though, Dean makes her anxious. Ellen knows it’s not fair to the kid but she doesn’t know what happened on that damned hunt with John, she doesn’t know why her husband didn’t make it. John was like family before she had to bury Bill; after that, she doesn’t know who started drifting away first.

One of the boys cracks something and Jo chuckles; a quiet, contained noise swallowed up by the walls and the darkness around them.

Ellen sighs quietly. Jo is a smart girl, that’s the way she raised her, but she’s young and still naïve and Roadhouse doesn’t have this young- or pretty- customers. Minimal charm goes a long way when there was none before.

“How’d you boys find the case?” She asks, picking up her pace.

All three turn their heads to glance at her over their shoulders.

Dean says, “Uh, my dad passed it on. Said someone else was working on it but had to bail for some reason.”

Ellen hums, containing an eye-roll. “Yeah, that’d be Jackson.” _Bastard, she told him she’s gonna handle it._

Jo’s been getting restless, pushing to get out in the field, to hunt _at least once, Christ, Mom_. Ellen was waiting for something simple, but the longer she waited the bigger the risk of Jo going out on her own was. And this was, well, simple enough. At least she thought so.

She turns her attention to Diego. Close-up, he’s not making her opinion on him any simpler. He looks pale in the glaring glow of flashlights, skin smeared with dirt, like the rest of them, living ghost down here. But his features are soft and his eyes are warm, kind, despite the frown on his face.

“Your folks are hunters?” She asks.

He looks at her, startled. Then he laughs, single soft exhale. “Hell no,” he says, looking like he’s imagining it and finding it hilarious. He jerks his thumb at Dean over Jo’s head, “Dean got me into it, actually.”

Dean snorts. “We, ah, bumped into each other on a case,” he explains, holding eye-contact with Diego.

_Hm_.

Jo looks at Diego curiously, “So you weren’t born in this lifestyle?”

Diego shrugs, “No, not really.”

Jo’s eyes light up, interest piqued.

She attacks him with rapid-fire of questions soon, and he stumbles through answering them. Jo wants to hear about normal but Ellen has a feeling Diego can’t tell her much about it.

A few steps behind the two of them, Ellen and Dean set a pace for themselves. He’s quiet for a bit, listening just like she is to Jo and Diego, and then he scratches the back of his neck, a small nervous gesture, asking, “So, um, how’d you know my dad?”

Ellen wants to smile and tell him all about it. The first meeting, hunts. _My Bill and John were like brothers. We were a family_ , she wants to say.

She says, “We used to hunt together, him, my husband and me.” She glances at him, his green eyes trained on her. He has his mother’s eyes for sure; she never met Mary, didn’t have the chance, but John showed her the photos on one occasion, after a hunt that went well and they were all drunk and for once feeling good.

“Oh,” he says, catching onto what is unsaid. There are only two reasons to use past tense when hunters are in question and it’s rarely the nicer one.

They are quiet after that.

Jo still chatters from time to time and Diego hums in response more often than not. Not dismissively; he’s just apparently not a very chatty person. At one point, there’s a flash, something glinting, and Ellen tenses for a second before the rest of her catches up to her sight and hunter reflexes.

Diego is flipping Jo’s switchblade in his hand, then passing it over for her to copy his moves.

Dean catches her look and says, “Diego’s a bit of a knives expert, heh,“ like it’s some sort of an inside joke.

It’s not a lie, though. The kid keeps pulling tricks out of his sleeve, the blade smoothly passing from his to her daughter’s hands and back as they keep walking.

Ellen wonders where he learned that.

The longer they walk, the damper and colder it gets, dark reaching for them outside the beams of light they cast out. Ellen’s mind wanders; things that need to be ordered, boxes that need to be unpacked, forms she has to sign- all waiting for when they come back home. It’s just in the back of her mind, though, as she has three kids with her. Call it her motherly instincts but she’s responsible for them until they see this through.

Suddenly, Jo and Diego stop, causing Dean and her to almost run into them. Over their shoulders, Ellen can see their flashlights aimed up front- at a wall.

“Aw fuck,” Dean says, “a dead end?”

“Uh,” Diego starts. He stretches to the tips of his toes and aims his flashlight higher, arm lifted above his head. The light travels out into the dark.

He glances back at them, a confused frown on his face, “It looks like a really high threshold?” And then his expression screws up like he’s just realizing how dumb that sounds.

From her right, embarrassingly obvious, Dean is looking at him fondly. Yeah, Ellen’s got nothing to worry about.

She flashes her own flashlight around, following the bottom of the tunnel and the ceiling form each side. Something’s off.

“I think they realized they were digging deeper into the ground and just decided to start anew,” she tells them.

“Fantastic,” Dean mutters, eying the semi-barricade in front of them.

Jo sighs, “They could’ve at least dug out some damn steps.”

The boys let out grumbles of agreement.

“Well, we have to keep going,” Ellen says when a brief silence settles over them, everyone thinking.

There are sighs of resignation, exhaled into sticky, damp air. And then Jo says, “Alright, hoist me up!”

_Christ._

“You sure?” Dean asks, sending not-so-sneaky glance at Ellen.

She doesn’t approve but-

“Hell yeah,” Jo confirms, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet. It’s not like Ellen can really stop her. They’re already here.

Without a word, Diego braces his back against the wall and interlocks his fingers in front of him.

“Come on, then,” he says, shimmying down a bit to bend his knees.

Jo clambers over him eagerly, crawling up to the next level. Ellen can see that the space is smaller than the one they’re in right now, but Jo can stand up to her full height with no problem and there’s enough breathing room around her as well.

Dean hands her his machete, then hoists himself up on Diego’s locked hands just like Jo did. Midway up, he glances down at Diego, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, and Diego grins in return around the flashlight clenched between his teeth.

Ellen realizes it’s her turn and hands over her flashlight and machete to Dean and Jo.

She and Dean help pull Diego up too, his and Dean’s hands locking together like they familiar with each other. Once they’re all on the same level, their touch lingers before they’re stepping away from each other as if burned.

_Kids and their stupidity_ , she thinks, strangely fond.

She catches her daughter’s eye across the small space, the darkness painting her into a mirror image of Bill, wild and full of life.

  * ····



Dean stomps over the compacted earth that makes for the floor, aware of how dampness and soot cling to his skin and clothes. Diego’s got it worse, though; absolutely covered in dirt from his fall, continuously scratching at himself, trying to get rid of the itch from dust and soil.

Jo is…remarkably peppy. Not obviously, but there’s almost a spring to her step. Dean can tell this is her first hunt; she’s excited. It’s pretty late to start hunting, as far as Dean’s aware, but she seems competent and ready to kick ass. That’s really all he needs.

He’s curious, though, about why Dad never mentioned Harvelles. He hopes there’s no bad blood between them because he’d like to get out of this stinky ass tunnel in one piece, _thank you very much._

There is a lot of walking. And then more walking. And listening and gagging because Jesus fuck, something fucking reeks. His mind reminds him that they’re essentially surrounded by corpses in various states of decay all around them, not to mention that these ghouls probably have snacks stored somewhere here.

His mind, naturally, is an asshole and that reminder doesn’t make him feel any better about their situation.

Christ, when they get out of here, he’s gonna get on his knees if that’s gonna take for Diego to let him apologize already. He’s gonna apologize, Diego can kick his ass and they’ll go back to normal.

  * ····



Diego fucking itches. It was present pretty much from the get-go but it’s starting to be intolerable now. There’s dirt in places…where dirt never was before.

“Fucking hell,” he mutters to himself, scratching angrily at his throat. He faintly, ridiculously, regrets that humans don’t have snake-skin. He’d fucking love to peel off the outer layer of his skin right now. Maybe two; anything to get rid of this itch.

“Dude,” Dean tells him, eyeing his throat with a frown.

“Fuck off, it itches,” he says.

Dean’s eyebrows jump, “Yeah, well, you’re gonna draw blood and then get an infection from all that shit you’re covered in.”

“So I’m gonna die of sepsis? _Terrific._ ”

Fine, he’s being dramatic. But Dean’s right about drawing blood so he plucks a knife from his pocket, drags it bluntly over his palm and drums the flat side over his knuckles in effort to distract his fingers from ants crawling over his skin.

  * ····



Jo hates how the dampness makes her clothes stick to her, giving the material a heavy, thick feel. But there’s the quiet thrill drumming inside her veins, the readiness to tackle this. Mom’s here and she’s not lecturing her about college or making friends and they are about to kill some monsters. It’s pretty great.

She didn’t expect to bump into other hunters; the case pass-overs are usually much smoother than this. But she knows Jackson, and she doesn’t want to be mean, but it’s not really a surprise that he messed up.

And she’s not complaining about company. Diego and Dean are interesting.

And yeah, sure, they are pretty cute, but they seem to be lost in their own world.

It doesn’t mean that Jo can’t ogle from outside their little bubble.

Diego is pretty quiet and he’s kinda frowny. It doesn’t hide warm, brown eyes or just the general softness his face gives off. And his scars are pretty dope.

Dean’s features are a bit sharper, eyes bright and green and he’s got what Jo supposes is called a “lady-killer charm”. But you know, whatever.

When people like Dennis and his beer foam coated mustaches are what she has to watch every day, she’s allowed to look at more…appealing things. Right?

And anyway, Diego’s got some neat knife tricks and Dean’s sense of humor is better than what she’s used to hearing.

She rearranges her grip on her flashlight and squares up, renowned vigor coursing through her as she starts stalking through the dark, feeling just a bit closer to her dad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jo, Dean and Diego as a chaotic hunting trio? No? Anyone?  
> Diego and Jo being knife bros?  
> I don't know, I think I'm sleep deprived, yay quarantine. (Actually it's just me not going to sleep like a normal human being but fuck it, I'll sleep when I'm dead. Maybe.)


	3. 3.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I SUCK  
> My mind wouldn't cooperate but the update is here now. <3 <3 <3
> 
> Let me know what you think, come scream at me wherever you want and enjoy! :)

_The air tastes like dust. Diego can taste it on his tongue, tangy with copper, feel the grains between his teeth when he clenches his jaw. He picks himself up off the ground slowly as his whole body throbs like a single giant, furious bruise._

_There’s noise in the background, mixed with the ringing in his ears- then a hand closes around his biceps and he almost stabs Luther who appeared from somewhere to help him._

_I can stand, I’m fine, he wants to say, but his tongue feels heavy in his mouth and his vocal cords like they’re coated in rust._

_“Are you okay?” Luther asks him, voice faint and leading him to the van._

_Diego blinks, gives him a nod._

_Their siblings are watching them anxiously. Ben’s fiddling with the zipper of his uniform, his other hand wound around his stomach in what’s a habit by now at missions. Allison’s eyebrows are scrunched in worry and Diego can feel his hackles rising in defense (he’s not helpless, he’s not the fuck-up, he’s gonna be fine) but there’s a thin scrape on her temple, dripping blood down her face sluggishly and Klaus’ palms are skinned._

_He will be fine._

_Ben squeezes in close to him, clutches at the sleeve of his uniform, squeezing once, twice in what means “I’m glad you’re okay, I love you, it’s fine,” and everything else they don’t know how to say with words and make it be the truth._

_Klaus accidentally kicks him in the shin and tangles their ankles together as he sprawls in the backseat. Allison picks the song, something pop and god-awful and Luther drums his own rhythm on his thigh as Pogo drives them home._

_They will all be fine. Even if Five’s not with them anymore._

  * ····



Diego is, well, honestly- he’s kinda hungry. There’s a small hole in his stomach and it’s progressively turning into an abyss.

The time loses all meaning in the dark and Diego’s mind strays, unwillingly, to the basement and the swimming pool, the cold tiles and wet air, his stomach twisting as the only thing inside him is air locked down in his lungs.

He still itches all over but his skin burns and feels hot to the touch when his fingers graze it; it’s definitely red and irritated. He entertains his fingers with a blade instead of causing more damage.

Dean is an unmistakable shape in the dark, even when the lights are not trained on him, walking alert and ready. Diego swallows dryly, taps the blade of his knife against his thigh, and keeps walking.

The smell is getting worse too; the thick pungent odor of rot. It hits them in intervals, faint, then strong enough to make them gag. And then, finally, sound.

A wet squelch, the sound of ripping and cracking.

They lower their flashlights not to alert the ghouls and Dean’s hand closes around the back of his shirt, keeping him on the spot.

Jo looks grossed out; the sounds of monsters feeding on human flesh are probably not what she expected on her first hunt. She catches him looking and steels up.

Diego smirks.

Ellen advances to the front of their group on silent feet, an assumed leader, and peers around the corner.

The material of his shirt is taut where Dean has it bunched up in his fist and his proximity builds warmth against his back, makes him want to lean in. His throat itches horribly.

“Three,” Ellen mouths at them, lifting her hand and three of her fingers so there’s no confusion and uncertainty.

Three monsters to four hunters? That’s the first small mercy that life has given them today. Tonight? This morning? Diego is pretty sure it’s past midnight.

Ellen is about to say something else, a game plan, most likely- but then a hand, tacky with blood and dirt, closes over her shoulder and pulls her into the dark.

  * ····



“Mom!” Jo screams as soon as it happens. She lunges after her and Diego’s hand grabs at her wrist to hold her back. She’s persistent, though, and Dean feels himself yanked forward with Diego’s body.

The three of them stumble into the darkness, flashlights up and casting around beams of light, and turning the so-called room into some fucked-up version of the horror disco. The air is thick with copper.

Dean steps widely over an unrecognizable corpse and loses his grip on Diego. He hears footsteps approaching him from behind and throws back his elbow. Something collides, crunches audibly. He turns, and the light catches on a blood-caked face, teeth bared in a snarl and nose crooked. He swings his machete as the ghoul lunges and then sidesteps as the headless body drops down like a sack of potatoes. The head rolls off somewhere into the dark.

Lights hits his eyes sharply and he hisses. Somewhere in the dark, a body collides against the wall, Ellen grunts, Diego releases an angry exhale.

Dean locates him in the corner, shines his flashlight on him. The ghoul he’s holding away from his face makes a mistake of allowing Diego to push him back. It gives him an opening to pelt the monster across the face- hard enough for something to crack. When he goes down, Diego holds out his machete to Jo.

“He’s all yours,” he tells her and she gladly accepts the weapon.

She brings it down at the same time as a gunshot sounds off, then the sound of splatter.

Ellen exhales loudly.

After a beat of labored breathing being the only sound, Jo says, “Not to sound like I’m sorry none of us got hurt- but this was a bit underwhelming.”

Dean snorts but then shuts up because he can feel Ellen giving him _the Look_.

Diego says, “Well, they were outnumbered. And, fuck, nobody wants to fight just after they ate.”

Goddamnit, Dean cracks up.

  * ····



After it was established that all three ghouls are really dead, they made a long, slow trek back to the surface. The small adrenalin rush was wearing off for everyone and the sight of the motel was the most beautiful thing Dean saw at the moment that Impala swerved into the parking lot.

“No offense, boys, but I think we’ve had enough socializing for tonight,” Ellen tells them in front of their motel room. Jo’s bouncing on the balls of her feet, the only one apparently not dead on her feet. _The thrill of the first hunt_ , Dean thinks.

“None taken,” Diego waves her off, smeared in dirt. In the streetlight, he’s a strange picture of exhaustion and beautiful. The pale, smooth skin of his scar catches the light, tugs at Dean’s heartstring without mercy.

Ellen clears her throat, says, “You boys have a good rest of the night. Get some sleep.”

“Will do. You too,” Dean says, nodding at her and Jo.

They part ways then and as soon as Dean closes the door to their room, Diego starts wrestling out of his clothes.

“Jesus _fuck_ , it’s like there are ants all over my skin,” he mutters, voice wobbly with frustration and tiredness. “Dibs on the first shower!” He tosses over his shoulder, already at the doorway.

Dean takes time to unlace his boots, grabs a bottle of water from the fridge, and downs half of it in one go. Alone, the fact that he can’t mess this up again looms over him. He wants to apologize- and he will apologize. But he can’t leave space for fucking up. Not again and not after what he said to Diego. He needs to do this right.

The water runs in the bathroom and he sits at the edge of the bed in his underwear, stomach twisting.

_I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I love you._

He picks at the thread in the lining to keep himself anchored on the spot. He blows out a breath to ease the tension in his chest. It doesn’t help much.

The bathroom door opens and Diego walks out wrapped in a towel. “Is there anything in the fridge? I’m starving,” he says. His throat is painfully red, nail lines visible.

“Uh, I think so? There should be some leftovers.”

“Perfect,” Diego responds, shimmying into his underwear and crossing the room like a man on a mission. He digs pizza leftovers out from the fridge and digs right in. And honestly, now that Dean thinks about it, he’s kinda starving too. They were in those tunnels for ages and Jo is right; it ended being pretty underwhelming considering how long it took them to find the fuckers.

“Save me some,” he says and gets into the bathroom. He takes a quick shower, just to wash off that goddamn smell, then he emerges to find Diego lying on the bed in sweatpants and a T-shirt, pizza box on his stomach, and chewing lazily despite his claim to be starving. His free hand has drifted up to his collarbones, just on the edge of the raw red skin that covers his throat.

It probably itches and hurts.

Dean hops up in similar attire to his, feels the food and the bed beckon him. But he needs to do something first.

“I’ll be right back, gotta go grab something,” he tells Diego.

The air outside is chilly after the warm shower but Dean finds the first aid kit and the freezer bags in the trunk fast enough (their uses are various and pretty much never for storing meat) and the ice machine is actually working. He loads up one of the bags and gets back into the room.

He doesn’t think there’s much to do about irritated skin. But still- some antiseptic cream and ice won’t hurt.

“Hey,” he says to get Diego’s attention. It’s stupid because Diego was already looking at him but he couldn’t come up with anything better at the moment.

He sits on the edge of the bed near Diego’s side, closer than he was there last few days and suddenly tongue-tied.

But that’s fine because Diego doesn’t say anything either. He keeps watching Dean as he applies the cream on his throat; fingers sliding gently over skin red and hot to the touch. He brushes his thumb under Diego’s jaw, feels him swallow against his hand.

Diego’s eyes close, a curtain of thin, soft skin and dark eyelashes, and he lets his head fall back, bares his neck to Dean- and Dean loves it and he also hates it because Diego is always so ready to hand him life for safekeeping. He knows Dean and he _got hurt by him_ and he still trusts him enough for this.

He touches the pads of his fingers at the hollow of Diego’s throat lightly. A silent apology in lieu of the one he doesn’t want to hear and Dean doesn’t know how to voice yet.

Diego sighs and slings an arm over Dean’s lap, palm barely curling around Dean’s hip.

Dean’s tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth, dry as a desert, and he says, “I, uh, I’ve got ice too.”

He holds up the bag before pressing it over abused, overheated skin. Diego twitches, goosebumps immediately breaking over his skin.

“Too cold?” Dean asks, pausing.

Diego smiles, small and soft. “Just enough.”

Dean’s heart twists in his chest; swells and tears at the seams with the affection that still hits him at random, even after all this time. He lays his arm over Diego’s in his lap, forearms touching, and cups his palm over Diego’s elbow gently.

  * ····



The morning comes in a blink, even to Dean who spent the majority of the night staring at the ceiling.

When they pack up and get out of the room, they are greeted by the Harvelles loading up their own car.

“You boys slept well?” Ellen asks them, closing the trunk.

“Yeah.”

She approaches them and hands Dean a slip of paper.

“I run a hunters’ bar, Roadhouse. That’s my number and address. If you boys ever need information or help, call or drop by, alright?” She explains.

Dean thinks faintly, _huh, he made his very first hunter connection_.

He says, “Will do,” and then he scrambles to pluck a reporter’s business card from his wallet. “The card’s fake but the number works.”

Ellen pockets it with a pleasant smile.

“Drive safe,” she tells them.

Jo socks them both in the shoulder and hops to her mother’s car with “See you around!” thrown over her shoulder, light blonde hair flying in the breeze.

They lift their hands in greeting and watch them drive off before getting in the Impala.

  * ····



The Sun is still slowly rising when Dean decides to take his shot.

The road is deserted and it’s just them, the misty morning air and Led Zeppelin. Diego’s tracing the edge of a blade with the pad of his index finger, a slow, absent drag of skin over metal.

Dean says, “I gotta say something,” and gently brings Baby to the stop on the gravel at the side of the road.

Diego stills, looks over at him. His throat is still red, but he says it doesn’t hurt.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I need to apologize,” he says.

Diego scrambles out of the car as if Dean just tried to shoot him. He jumps out after him, almost trips over his feet to get to his side.

“I know you don’t want me to-“

“Then don’t!” Diego tells him. On the miles of the open road on each side of him, he looks cornered.

Still, Dean stalks to him with confidence he’s fabricating on the go. “I have to! God, Diego- I’m sorry-“

“Shut up. I don’t- I don’t want-“

“I’m sorry!” Dean yells. “I’m sorry I was an asshole, and I’m sorry I hurt you! I’m sorry!”

Some part of him- the one currently speaking- thinks that if he says it enough, Diego will forgive him.

Diego blinks. He keeps going, thunder in his chest pushing him forward.

“I’m sorry that I said those things. You’re so fucking infuriating and you get me so messed up and you’re not a monster, Diego.”

Diego sniffles and his eyes glisten like diamonds, like liquid gold even as he tries to blink away the tears.

Dean grabs at the front of his jacket and pulls him in close; Diego goes easily, without a protest. “I love you, okay? I love you and I need you to understand that you’re the best fucking person I know. You’re good and I’m an idiot and I’m sorry.”

Diego’s face crumbles; the first sob catches Dean by surprise, but Diego leans forward and tucks his head into Dean’s neck and Dean’s arms close around him before he even consciously thinks about it. Diego’s arm closes around his middle and Dean feels him shaking as he cries as if he's gonna fall apart. He has never seen Diego cry; not like this and it guts him. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says again because he doesn’t know what else to say. Diego makes a choked off noise in his throat, pushes his face into the crook of Dean’s neck harder.

Dean turns them and presses him against the car and then presses himself into Diego, absently wondering if he could get close enough to make it impossible to tell where he ends and Diego begins. His arm tightens over Diego’s shoulders, fingers digging between his shoulder blades and his other hand coming up to cradle the back of Diego’s head.

He kisses his hair, says, “I love you”, kisses wherever he can reach and keeps talking until he can’t understand what he’s saying anymore. Until his heart stops feeling like it will explode and kill him right there, Diego crying in his arms, beautiful and impossible.

“I had this thing with my siblings,” he says suddenly, voice thick with tears, “where we’d squeeze each other’s hands or arms when we had something important to say.”

Then he reaches up with one arm to squeeze at Dean’s biceps hard, once, twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not relevant but I started watching Santa Clarita Diet (I know, I'm fucking slow) and I've lost a majority of faith in humanity for letting it get canceled.
> 
> Okay, to the relevant stuff; this is the end of this installment and I'll hopefully start the next installment faster than I posted this update jkdshdjv XD


End file.
